California Science Center volunteer Stan Barauskas explains the controls on Endeavour to a visitor. DAVID WHITING, ORANGE COUNTY REIGISTER

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Stan Barauskas inside a working space shuttle about 10 years ago checks out the hydraulic system that Barauskas helped create. COURTESY OF STAN BARAUSKAS

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California Science Center volunteer Stan Barauskas points to a screen photo of the controls on Endeavour. His finger indicates the hydraulics that he helped create. DAVID WHITING, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Space shuttle Endeavour seems to hover in its hangar at the California Science Center in Los Angeles. DAVID WHITING, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

LOS ANGELES – Boeing engineer Stan Barauskas points up at the giant flaps on Space Shuttle Endeavour and explains to a curious woman the hydraulics behind steering the black and white bird.

Impressed with the California Science Center volunteer's knowledge, the woman asks Barauskas how he knows so much. Proud but modest, Barauskas glances down at the polished concrete floor and admits, "I designed them."

It's a very cool moment under the massive rocket engines of a very cool 75-ton spaceship. But the chat isn't just about boldly going where no one has gone before. For more than a decade, much of the shuttle program was supported by Boeing in Huntington Beach.

Yes, we sometimes forget that Orange County played – and still plays – a significant role in seeking out new life and new civilizations.

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Much as I hate to admit it, it's unlikely that any dreams of exploring strange new worlds are going to come true for average civilians in our lifetimes – or our grandchildren's lifetimes.

And that is why I'm at the Science Center – to make dreams come true as much as possible. While we can't join real-life Capt. Kirks, we can see and touch things that have touched the heavens.

In one gallery sit nitrogen-filled tires that were aboard Endeavour and were scraped raw during a landing. A sign encourages visitors to touch the black rubber. I reach out for a Spock-like mind-meld.

It's not about the 205-pound tires. I'm seeking a tactile connection to the final frontier. Closing my eyes and imagining, the tires become a wormhole to the solar system, the galaxy, the universe. The Crab Nebula races by, the supernova's purples and blues glowing against blackness.

The shouts of a gaggle of children bring me back to planet Earth. And it's onward to the most popular shuttle exhibit except for the Endeavour itself.

That would be the space potty.

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I don't know why going to the bathroom is the most popular Endeavour exhibit. "Star Trek," "Star Wars," even "Battlestar Galactica" didn't bother with this basic experience – and "Galactica" ran for four seasons.

Still, the toilet gets the biggest crowd. It even stars in its own video.

I'll skip most of the details and just say it's all about suction. The seat hole is 4 inches wide, compared with your toilet, which is, like, more than twice that. There are different, um, devices for men and women. Yes, zero gravity offers challenges we don't consider.

You know how actors behave in movies and on television as if there's gravity, space beer in mugs, silver boots on floor? Barauskas explains that shuttle engineers had to be sure real-life astronauts could always strap in or Velcro down.

We wander over to the flip side of the potty – the galley. It's nothing fancy; a conventional oven heats meals. Still, there's a touch of satisfaction in Barauskas' voice when he mentions it was designed by men and women he knew and remains friends with.

A little background: The shuttle program started about four decades ago. Early on, Rockwell International won a $2.6 billion contract for much of the work, which was done in Downey. That's where men and women like Barauskas spent much of their careers. In 1996, Rockwell merged with Boeing, and several years later, the Downey operation closed and Boeing consolidated its force in Huntington Beach.

When the shuttle program ended a few years ago, Boeing laid off some 100 workers at the Huntington Beach facility. It was in Huntington Beach where Barauskas retired – and it's in Huntington Beach where, Barauskas smiles as he tells me this, he recently returned to work part time.

For people such as Barauskas, building spaceships isn't just a job; it's a passion.

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We check out the display of the Rocketdyne Operations Support Center that was once in Canoga Park and remotely monitored the engines for every shuttle launch. With a sweep of his arm, Barauskas says the work area is tiny in comparison with the 50 work stations at the Kennedy Space Center where Barauskas worked during the launch of the first shuttle on April 12, 1981, as well as during several other launches.

With a grin, Barauskas calls those days "exciting."

He also recalls two other dates seared into his soul: Jan. 28, 1986, the day Challenger blew up after launch and Feb. 1, 2003, the day Columbia disintegrated during re-entry. Reeling off a series of statistics like the engineer that he is, Barauskas details exactly what went wrong, the problem with the Challenger's booster O-rings and cold temperatures, foam clipping Columbia's left wing.

Then Barauskas offers what engineers did to correct the problems. It's a reminder that exploration can be dangerous, even deadly. But it's also a reminder that humans learn, find solutions, fix problems.

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We enter the hanger that is temporary housing for Endeavour. Placed on earthquake resistant steel pilings, the shuttle is high enough to walk under and seems to hover.

The biggest surprise isn't Endeavour's hulking size. If you're a sci-fi sy-fy fan you may remember a TV series called "Firefly." It turns out "Firefly" nailed what a vehicle that travels through hellfire and returns to Earth looks like.

Endeavour is scarred, burned and rightly so. This shuttle flew 25 missions, spent 296 days in space, completed 4,671 orbits and traveled nearly 122 million miles – and its windows were made in Huntington Beach.

Volunteer Art Hill offers tile samples to touch. White Nomex tiles are soft, like a blanket. Their purpose – to insulate. Hill explains that dead air is the best insulator and the white tiles maximize that. They withstand temperatures of nearly 1,000 degrees.

Most of the black tiles are air-light, can crumble if squeezed tightly and withstand even higher temperatures. Finally come the heavy tiles, something called reinforced carbon-carbon. They are on the front edges of the wings and on Endeavour's nose and are good up to 2,750 degrees.

As we leave the vast hanger, Barauskas explains why Endeavour has the British spelling. It's named after Capt. James Cook's first ship to sail the Pacific, a ship of exploration.

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